Building Trust in Media by showing quote context
Background
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Three weeks ago I learned that I'm going to be laid off at the end of this month (my position is being eliminated in a reorganization).
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I've been working on a hobby project called CiteIt.net for the past 6 years, so I figure this is a good opportunity to pursue my passion project, while simultaneously looking for a new job.
The Problem: Reader Distrust in Media
So here's the problem I'm trying to solve:
Often when I'm reading, I'll come across a quotation and think:
That's a nice quote, but I wonder what it says two sentences prior, or two sentences after the quote. In other words: what's the context, and how do I know that this quote wasn't cherry-picked?
Solution:
If authors cite their source's URL, my app will automatically look up the context and display it for the reader so the reader doesn't have to visit the source and manually locate the context.
Audience & Plan
I'm not going to waste my time with people that don't cite their sources. Instead, my CiteIt App makes it easy for the responsible authors to distiguish themselves by showcasing the context of their citations. In time, I hope readers reward Journalists and bloggers who show their sources.
I'd also like to see my App used in Academia, but to get started I'd like to look up all the citations in the English-language Wikipedia articles and upgrade them to CiteIt's contextual citations.
Wikipedia
Wikipedia data is freely available and will serve as a testbed and showcase as I try to make my program more feature-capable and robust.
I'll know that the citation lookup algorithm is nearing maturity when it can successfully match a very high percentage of Wikipedia citations.
I expect this will mean I have to match quotes with elipses .. , [added] words, [c]hanges in capitalization, PDF documents, etc.
Goal
My goal is to further develop CiteIt with grant funding in collaboration with Wikipedia/Internet Archive. I'd like to host the citation database with the Internet Archive. (I know that's ambitious)
Feedback
I'm looking for
- contacts,
- programming collaborators (mainly Python, some javascript),
- funding ideas, and
- feedback
so that I can write a strong grant proposal and impress the organizations I want to partner with. more plan details
View CiteIt.net Website
